Sure enough, when the hunters noticed a good-looking young woman on the shore, they beached their canoe and took her on board. She had a child in her arms, and the child cried incessantly.
“It is hungry,” the woman explained; so they made much broth of wild ducks and fed the child and its mother. They feasted most of that night, and the head man was so well pleased with the supposed woman that he offered to marry her. All went well till they awoke in the morning, when, to his surprise and disgust, the new wife looked like a man.
“So it is you, up to your tricks again, you good-for-nothing Raven! Be off with you!” exclaimed the angry hunter, and he cast him overboard.
Raven put on his feathered robe and flew off without any trouble, and at the same moment the baby turned to a crow and flew away also.
RAVEN AND THE CHILDREN
Raven was out for a walk and came upon a crowd of children playing with whale’s blubber. Huge piles of it lay at their feet, and they were throwing lumps at one another in great glee. He stopped and spoke to them.
“Where did you get all that blubber?” he asked.
“Oh,” answered the oldest boy, “we climb up that tall tree you see over yonder and jump down from the topmost limb. As we land, we cry out, ‘Be piled up, all my blubber!’ and it is so.”
Raven immediately climbed the tree and jumped off the highest branch, shouting, “Be piled up, all my blubber!”
Nothing happened except that he struck the ground so hard that he was lame for several days. Meanwhile the children picked up the blubber and ran off, laughing heartily.